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High oil prices to rule for next 20 years
Friday, 10 December 2004, 20:30 IST
WASHINGTON: High crude oil prices will be the norm for the next 20 years, according to a forecast by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), reports Xinhua.
"The recent experience with higher and more volatile oil prices has added to uncertainty about the long-term path of crude oil prices," the EIA said Friday on the issue of its long-term energy outlook report.
The report, the Annual Energy Outlook 2005, estimated that world oil production will grow from about 80 million barrels now to 120 million barrels a day in 2025.
Neither US production nor consumption will change dramatically in the next 20 years and US refineries will increasingly have to depend on imported crude oil, it predicted.
Crude is estimated to cost 31 dollars a barrel in 2010 and 35 dollars a barrel in 2025. But the higher prices are not expected to be steep enough to force a significant decline in demand.
"Total energy demand is projected to increase from 98.2 to 133.2 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) between 2003 and 2025, an average annual increase of 1.4 percent, in a scenario where the US economy grows at an average annual rate of 3.1 percent," the report said.
The survey estimated that US oil production will increase about six percent by 2025 and the country's petroleum product consumption will be two percent less than that at present.
But in 2005, net petroleum imports are expected to account for 68 percent of total petroleum demand, up from 56 percent in 2003.
Coal will remain the primary fuel for electricity generation through 2025 but its share of total generation will decline slightly, from 51 percent in 2003 to 50 percent in 2025.
Source: IANS
Source: IANS